e in the best light, and went to fetch the purchaser.

Now meanwhile Botticelli and his other pupils had made eight caps of
scarlet pasteboard such as the citizens of Florence then wore, and
these they fastened with wax on to the heads of the eight angels in the
picture.

Presently Biagio came back panting with joyful excitement, and brought
with him the citizen, who knew already of the joke. The poor boy looked
at his picture and then rubbed his eyes. What had happened? Where were
his angels? The picture must be bewitched, for instead of his angels he
saw only eight citizens in scarlet caps.

He looked wildly around, and then at the face of the man who had
promised to buy the picture. Of course he would refuse to take such a
thing.

But, to his surprise, the citizen looked well pleased, and even praised
the work.

'It is well worth the money,' he said; 'and if thou wilt return with me
to my house, I will pay thee the six gold pieces.'

Biagio scarcely knew what to do. He was so puzzled and bewildered he
felt as if this must be a bad dream.

As soon as he could, he rushed back to the studio to look again at that
picture, and then he found that the red-capped citizens had
disappeared, and his eight angels were there instead. This of course
was not surprising, as Sandro and his pupils had quickly removed the
wax and taken off the scarlet caps.

'Master, master,' cried the astonished pupil, 'tell me if I am
dreaming, or if I have lost my wits? When I came in just now, these
angels were Florentine citizens with red caps on their heads, and now
they are angels once more. What may this mean?'

'I think, Biagio, that this money must have turned thy brain round,'
said Botticelli gravely. 'If the angels had looked as thou sayest, dost
thou think the citizen would have bought the picture?'

'That is true,' said Biagio, shaking his head solemnly; 'and yet I
swear I never saw anything more clearly.'

And the poor boy, for many a long day, was afraid to trust his own
eyes, since they had so basely deceived him.

But the next thing that happened at the studio did not seem like a joke
to the master, for a weaver of cloth came to live close by, and his
looms made such a noise and such a shaking that Sandro was deafened,
and the house shook so greatly that it was impossible to paint.

But though Botticelli went to the weaver and explained all this most
courteously, the man answered roughly, 'Can I not do what I like with